Obesity Prevention Begins Before Birth: Excess Maternal Weight Gain Increases Birth Weight After Controlling for Genetic Factors

Yep. More early nutritional child abuse.

Expectant mothers who gain large amounts of weight tend to give birth to heavier infants who are at higher risk for obesity later in life. But it's never been proven that this tendency results from the weight gain itself, rather than genetic or other factors that mother and baby share.

A large population-based study from Children's Hospital Boston, looking at two or more pregnancies in the same mother, now provides evidence that excess maternal weight gain is a strong, independent predictor of high birth weight.

The study, published Online First in The Lancet, highlights the importance of weight management efforts even before birth.

"Since high birth weight, in turn, increases risk for obesity and diseases such as cancer and asthma later in life, these findings have important implications to general public health," says coauthor David Ludwig, MD, PhD, director of the Optimal Weight for Life (OWL) at Children's Hospital Boston. "It's appropriate for a baby to be born with some fat, but a baby born too fat indicates that the fetus developed in an abnormal environment during the most critical nine months of life."

It never was and never will be about genetics or any other excuse.

It is and always will be about caloric irresponsibility.

Stop nutritional child abuse.